First, the photo we were shown shows what anyone with experience in this field will tell you is stress-fractured metal, NOT "cut" or "torched." Yes, it ruins them, but in effect no one in this situation (on the scene, that is) cares.

Second, have you actually gone out to try and find joint bars for rail lately? A good ballpark figure is $50 each, $100 per joint, PLUS the bolts, and that's in large quantities. Tie plates are $5-10 each in large quantities.

The biggest issue is when track is pulled the joint bars get scrapped or broken or holes torched through when they take out the bolts. Go to buy the rail, and ask where the joint bars are. The scrappers get mad when you walk away or only offer scrap value for the rail, because it is becoming increasingly difficult to find 60, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, and now even 100 joint bars. I have offered one price for just the rail, then told them what I would have paid for rail and the joint bars. They quickly learn they made a mistake.

I believe the way the material is being treated is two fold- one, the company is doing things as cheaply as possible, I.E. breaking joint bars. And two, the county may have ordered things done a certain way so that if they were found in the wrong, it would be difficult to impossible to just put the rail back down without even more expense.

The question raised is "Was there an abandonment of common carrier authority at some point or is there a residual authority which is still in effect and if so who holds the residue?" If the the authority held by Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company, as the holder in due course of the authority held by all of its predecessors in interest, was in fact abandoned and no authority was conferred on any other entity then the the line is (and has been for some time) abandoned. If said authority was not abandoned then the line is not abandoned and that will have to be dealt with one way or another. If authority was conferred on another entity, such as the Catskill Mountain, then somebody needs to provide some real proof that common carrier service was not only offered but provided by an entity other than Conrail under subsidy.

If, and this is an if that is even larger than the County's submission, the Board finds that there is an existing common carrier authority over the line then there will have to be further proceedings by the County to vacate that authority. It will also allow the national trails act to kick-in and if the usual suspects decide to attempt an OFA proceeding (very difficult under the new rules) this case could be my regular entertainment for some time. If the Board finds that there is no extant common carrier authority than it is a landlord/tenant and land use case handled by the state courts. If the Board refuses to act (They can refuse to commence the proceeding) some poor judge in Ulster County is going to sit back in his chair, look skyward and say "Why me?"

Note to liallegheny: Thank you for posting Murray. I will have to read it in detail and check the timelines but as a Massachusetts case it is not precedent for the Board. Further, even if it was upheld in the 1st Circuit it would not apply in New York unless there was a substantively similar decision in the 2nd Circuit.

Am I understanding that correctly, that the courts ruled the line was not abandoned?

CD

No. This was a finding of law, not fact. What the court ruled was that abandonment was a Federal issue and the State Court did not have the subject matter jurisdiction to declare the line abandoned. The line was on an easement across the plaintiff's property and I think we can safely infer the existence of a reversionary clause. There was no evidence presented that the line had been properly abandoned under federal law and the State court could not could not fill the void. I've already explained why it is not precedent in New York or at the Board, however the likelihood is that on similar facts a New York court would find the same way.

There is approximately a full bundle (look it up) of submissions so far and probably more coming. Some poor clerk is going to have to read all of it.

I know that these things can be inaccurate, but looking at the online Ulster County GIS maps and tax documents, there appears to be a couple of parcels at the intersection of Rt. 28 and Basin Rd (east end of the reservoir) that shows neither an easement nor ownership of the ROW by Ulster County. If that is indeed the case, their proposed trail will have to go around the property.

The parcels I mentioned are privately owned. The ROW goes into NYDEP ownership westward at that point all around the reservoir.

The entire ROW to the county border, except for NYDEP and the aforementioned parcels (and a few others that show no data - usually means gov't owned), shows as owned by the County of Ulster. Limited detail is available online. I suppose I could do some additional online data mining but I'm sure all the other players have gone deeper into the records than I can from here.

The County's actions are about as bad as the Monon Bridge scrapper. IT WAS ABANDONED. pfft. You may be seeing some hardcore lawsuits. The Revitalization group has it down.

Hardly - Without endorsing the County's actions, they do have an arguable claim of title to the underlying property regardless of common carrier status of the line. In the case of the Monon bridge the scrapper had no legitimate claim of a property right.

The parcel maps / GIS I work with in New Jersey is very similar to Ulster County's. In my experience easements are not shown on specific tax map parcels. Hence the reason the railroad appears to be across private property east of the reservoir. That specific area was also part of the line relocation caused by the construction of the reservoir.

jayrod wrote:

I know that these things can be inaccurate, but looking at the online Ulster County GIS maps and tax documents, there appears to be a couple of parcels at the intersection of Rt. 28 and Basin Rd (east end of the reservoir) that shows neither an easement nor ownership of the ROW by Ulster County. If that is indeed the case, their proposed trail will have to go around the property.

I am not seeing any information that the rail line has been abandoned in the document, if they had hard proof they could have provided that in the first few sentences, instead we get an 88 page drawl of book history rail line management etc bouncing around various subjects. They are doing a dance around the issue.

The area that I am talking about is between 8.33 and basin rd. What are the boundaries of the DEP area. Google Maps satellite shows industry on the 28 road side of the row. So is the ROW the extent of the DEP area? My reasoning is that the EOT of 8.33 is reported to be because of the DEP so presumably, they own that ROW. Just how much more do they own in the direction of 28? And are they have the same types of issues with these entities that are using the land? So is the Asphalt plant on DEP property or on their own property. My understanding is that all parties should be treated evenly by a govt entity. It would be interesting to see if the county is treating others differently.

Would the circa 1930 NYC VAL maps for the line help with identifying some of the easements and adjacent lots? Its been a while since I've looked at a NYC Val map, but I seem to recall it did in some sections show information on the easements in addition to all the wayside details.

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